Free House of Memories by Alice; Taylor Page B

head.”
    “Not a good thing,” she assured him. “Perceived ideas blind you to new possibilities.”
    “That’s just it,” he told her in surprise, “but this new idea that has forced itself into my mind is a bit preposterous.”
    “Spit it out, as you say yourself, and I’ll soon tell you.”
    “Well, Kate, when I stood in front of the Conway house, a thought came into my head from the Lord only knows where.”
    “Jack, will you for goodness sakes just say what it is and stop meandering on about its source and how outrageous it is,” she demanded.
    “That Danny Conway should move back into the old home,” he blurted out.
    Kate looked at him in amazement but said nothing for a fewseconds, and then she nodded her head.
    “Do you know something, Jack,” she said slowly and thoughtfully, “that’s a bloody brilliant idea.”
    “But it’s the practicalities that I’m worried about,” he told her.
    “Well, whatever about the practicalities of the matter,” Kate declared, “it would be great for the Conways. Give them a whole new sense of themselves. The poke, as Molly called it, can only be full of bad memories.”
    “You’re right there, but you know something, Kate, I was not even thinking along those lines. I was totally taken up with planning the yard as well and economically as I could, and then this idea came from nowhere and…”
    “Not from nowhere, Jack,” Kate asserted smilingly. “That was old Molly Barry. You always had great time for her, and she saw her chance!”
    “Could be,” he agreed ruefully. “I’m around too long now to question the power of unknown elements at work.”
    “Would it make things that much more expensive?” Kate asked.
    “I’ve been doing my sums, and it might not, you know. Because he badly needs a new calf house, and that would solve that problem because he could use the poke, so he would be saved from building that. Of course, it will all depend on the condition of Furze Hill itself. It has been locked up for years.”
    “I never even saw it,” Kate told him. “Never knew for years that there was anything inside in that grove of trees.”
    “The whole place is completely closed in,” Jack said, “but when I was over today I got as far as the front door with the help of a slasher, and do you know something? I was pleasantlysurprised at the condition of the place.”
    “But it must be in a bad state having been locked up for so long,” Kate mused.
    “My only reason for thinking that it might be all right is that it was your grandfather who put on the roof and boarded up the windows, and he would do a great job.”
    “But why did Granda help him to close up that house?”
    “Conway was hell-bent on going ahead with his mad idea, and your grandfather wanted to make the house as secure as possible against whatever might come its way. He wanted to help Molly and make her feel that one day the family might be able to go back,” Jack told her.
    “And now that day is here,” Kate said.
    “So you think that’s the way to go?”
    “Without a doubt,” Kate assured him. “It makes all the sense in the world.”
    “Whatever about the financial world,” Jack smiled.
    “Jack, you once told me that there were some problems that nothing could solve, but that there are others that money can solve, and that these were not real problems at all because the money will always come from somewhere.”
    “Did I say that?” he smiled. “I must have been talking about someone else’s problems. It’s always easy to be philosophical about other people’s problems.”
    “No, you were not,” she told him. “You were talking about Mossgrove.”
    “God bless you, Kate, but you have a great memory. You’re enough to make any fellow think well before he opens his mouth. But I somehow get the feeling that you are telling me to grasp this nettle and encourage young Danny along theselines.”
    “You’d want to have it all worked out now, Jack, before you put